| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.3

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| Book Review | The American Historical Review, 106.3 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Comparative/World

Mark Allen Eisner. From Warfare State to Welfare State: World War I, Compensatory State Building, and the Limits of the Modern Order. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press. 2000. Pp. 371. Cloth $65.00, paper $19.95.

In this learned monograph, Marc Allen Eisner, a political scientist, details the persistence of the associative state through times of war, prosperity, and depression. He makes two major points: one about the nature of government and the other about the course of American history from World War I through the New Deal. 1

His contribution to the study of the states lies in his notion of compensatory state building. By this term he means that government compensates for its lack of administrative capacity by relying on the expertise of private entities—and particularly private corporations—to undertake difficult tasks. This process leads to the creation of an associative state in which the government facilitates private interactions yet lacks its own sources of power. World War I put demands on the federal government to raise, feed, and supply an army while simultaneously managing the effects of wartime production on the domestic economy. Such demands could only be met by compensatory state building. Private corporations went along with the exercise because they stood to make a lot of money from the process. Their enthusiasm for the associative state waxed and waned with their changing perceptions of just how lucrative associating with the government could be. . . .

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